Monthly Archives: January 2014

My weekend ..

Events

Thanks so much to Berj for driving me back to Stoke Mandeville tonight. 

Dani hates the drive and has been doing it for far too long, bless her. 
It’s poorly lit and invariably raining. 
Loved seeing Clair Mason ( from America ) plus Bret, Carol and Rory today. Rory bought my faithful bike today, relieving me of another part of my old life. Ah well..
Last night we, Larry and Sarah, Pia and Debs and Neal, Al and Wendy went to Richmond Theatre to a gig – the Counterfeit Stones ( better than the real thing ) Rolling Stones tribute band. 
Been seeing them for 20 years – always a brilliant night. 
I saw a lot of mates there from years gone by – all of them came and chatted to me – I could see some of them found it    tough to see me reduced to my current condition. Don’t worry, the only way is up..
( Encoded message for Sue Coggins SIDGMCO ) – work that one out if you can!
Slept badly though afterwards, not sure why, but then lay awake feeling depressed for hours, though by 8 am I seem to have perked up a bit. 
Eva, a lovely friend and incidentally Pia’s Mum,  cooked us the most fabulous dinner for Saturday night – which was big enough to feed me on Sunday too. 
Thanks Eves! It was truly delicious. 
Friday I spent most of with  my ever loyal Uni buddy, Charlie Perkins, who sat with me here in hospital for 4 hours, then drove me to Acton to meet Cherie for a massage. It all took a lot longer than it ought to have done, so big thanks to Charlie, freshly jet lagged from Hong Kong – top effort C Man. 
I may leave here in a few weeks, though our house isn’t suitable to live in properly – as in I can’t get into a loo or a bathroom  – tricky decision : stay here in appropriate facilities or go home and be a bit of a nuisance and smell progressively worse..
We do have a hosepipe and a hot tap in the garden. Maybe that’s the answer. 
Any volunteers to hose me down in the mornings? Might suit mums on way home from school run… 
And yes, I am serious!

From another top Welshman !

Events

Lovely man. Your blog last night absolutely hit the nail on the head.

For all of us, the path to greater daily serenity, peace of mind and just feeling that we have done our best before we put our head down on the pillow is to try and help and support other people. Especially when they ask for help.

 

I have written to you before over the last few months about how words that I sneered at frankly have become more important in meaning to me. For example I thought that people who ‘trudged’ along, doing their best were weak, had no goal, were not people that I could get any positive energy from. I have done a complete 360 on this. Sometimes all we can do in a day, because of how we are feeling, is just put move forward as best we can. Otherwise we work ourselves up, inevitable compare and despair with past days, times or situations.

 

Love is a word that is also seen as having a direct, perhaps sexual meaning versus it’s true meaning of frankly just being helpful and supportive. Your story about Nev’s son is lovely.

The alternative to love, is to point fingers. In my experience if you point 1 finger you get 3 fingers worth of stuff back that is at best very unpleasant for how I feel and damaging to my well-being.

 

Keep loving yourself and others. It is a the basis of being a strong human being not a weak one.

 

Phil

From a top fellow Welshman.

Events

Hi Russ,

 

As I sit on the train heading to the wonderful Birmingham, I realised phone calls are out of the question today. Yep, left the phone at home! Anyway, just thought I’d touch base and try and schedule an evening to come and see you next month.

 

Before we get to that, I thought I’d share the joy I had in reading the blog episode throughout the Christmas period. What started to look like the vacation you wish you’d never gone on to the adrenaline filled experience you probably thought would never come, was a true inspiration! For the time I have known you Russ, you have given me more inspiration than anyone to keep focussed on the things and people you love in life. Pushing myself to a Triathlon and running 10k were just a couple of things I stepped out of my comfort zone. From your side of it, I quietly laughed when you went on a surf trip to Bali (I know experienced surfers of 20 years that would have bottled out of hitting the ferocious waves of the Indian Ocean), but for Russ it was a challenge to live up to. For all those challenges, the last 6 months have been the biggest challenge and you continue to show that positive ‘I can’ attitude, venturing to the ski slopes. I have no doubt as time moves on you will find more and more happiness and enjoyment, it will just be different. You are and always will be an inspiration to your wife, children, family and friends. I must say, as much as I believed you would sometime defy the odds and prove that the mind is the key to your dreams, I truly didn’t think you’d be flying down the slopes within 6 months of such an horrific accident. More importantly, as a true Welshman says ‘you loved it see!’ and even more importantly, it was around the people you love most. Most  importantly, you got that buzz in life you thought you would never get again. I can say one thing to that, I believe it is a taste of many happy times you will have ahead. The challenge is dealing with the power of the mind, everyone can talk positive to you and that is important, however nobody but you can feel the true emotion and frustrations. Try and think of the improvements you are seeing day by day, week by week. I have no doubt you have set ‘Russ goals’. I hope you do not experience too many barriers like Guttman leisure centre, there are plenty of words we could blurt out for this – I would probably end up in a cell – T….s! Go for it Russ!

 

Something did happen on 2nd January that I believe could be of value. I went to a conference and had the pleasure of meeting an inspirational speaker ‘Marcus Childs’. He talked to an audience of 70 people and relayed various stories, however one was about someone who had a similar experience to yours. I went and had a private chat with Marcus before he left and he explained the emotional side of what you have experienced is the hardest to deal with. They have a voluntary organisation which he has suggested is worth a visit and I have detailed below his contact details (he has welcomed you to make contact with him). If your emotions are all over the place, it could be worth giving him a call or checking the website. By all means explain you were given his details by myself at the Eyesite conference on 2nd January.

Website: inmindinbody.com

Marcus Childs

E-mail: Marcus@inmindinbody.com

Mobile: 07956 907 983

 

Look forward to hearing from you

 

Kindest regards,

 

Andrew 

Last night.

Events

Was taken out (by two lads that work for me, Scott and Nev, and my an ex student of mine called Irinder) last night. 

We had a drink and a single course at a cool pub The Woolpack. Actually, we had desserts as well ( very nice ones ). 
I’ve known Nev for 25 years, I worked with him in Woking, long before he came to work for me. 
Anyway, he reminded me that about 16 years ago he told me that his toddler son had been refused a place at his nearest school, I think on the grounds that they’d not lived in the area for very long. 
I recall that it didn’t seem fair to me, and despite not knowing Nev very well, and certainly having never met his son ( to this day ) I offered to write to the school for him ( or at least write a letter that he could copy ). 
I suppose I rated my literary powers of persuasion..
So, I did write one, Nev’s partner copied it in her own handwriting, it led to a meeting at the school, and Nev junior got a place. Not only that, but his little sister did too a couple of years later. 
Why am I writing this? Well, because hearing last night how well his son has done since, and being credited in part for that, made me feel happy. That letter probably took me a few minutes, yet helped Nev and his partner for many years ( by simplifying the ‘school run’ ) and changed the course of 2 kids’ lives for ever. 
Worth the effort it took me, I’d say. 
Little, but thoughtful,  acts can lead to majorly beneficial  effects, providing we take the time out of our selfish (?) lives to do them. 
I’m not giving anyone a lecture here, I’m just reminding MYSELF of that. 

More sense!

Events

Sorry to hear of your experience in the pool yesterday but not in the least surprised. Health and Safety ,in so many instances, has done away with ordinary good old common sense.  Regrettably , so many of those responsible for drawing up H and S rules were and are totally lacking in common sense. Some years ago a good friend who you know (but whose name I will not put into print), rang me and asked me if I would do a day’s kayak instruction on the local reservoir. When I arrived to do the instruction with a crowd of primary school kids, he asked me to “keep it quiet” because I was no longer qualified . My very stringent B.C.U.Instructors Certificate was out of date and had been replaced by an NVQ. My 30 years of taking children on rivers and seas without a single incident were of no avail. It turned out that none of his present crop of instructors could perform an Eskimo roll and one of them could only just manage to swim 25 yards. My mate told me that it worried him to death and today he would be able to sit back and relax for once. There are so many examples of total idiocy regarding H and S that my way around it is to try hard to completely ignore it or, if I am in a situation where I have no choice but to take notice, be as bloody awkward as I can and take the piss out of anyone available.
Maybe we can arrange it for me to come up and come to the pool with you and bollocks to the lifeguard and his pathetic rules.
Love, Dad

Sent from my iPad

Sense.

Events
Hi

You are not lucky- in fact you are very unlucky being dealt a very difficult and challenging hand with the accident. What makes it even harder is that you are such a life loving person in all extremes of the phrase. 

The good news is that you have recently and over Christmas seen lights of hope in all of this. Imagine those you have met in the hospitals and the many others you haven’t who will never see the light and have given up all hope. 

At the toughest times maybe it helps to say to yourself that this really isn’t about you anymore. It’s about being a father to your girls, a son to your parents, a brother to your brothers. A husband to wife, a friend to your friends, and a boss and mentor to your staff and partners. 

You will get back to where you were if you can learn to redefine your definition of a fit, healthy, happy man. There are lots of versions that meet that definition. 

I have no idea if I could do it myself. All I know is that when the most gut wrenching times hit – sometimes you just have to step back and remove the “me” in it all. 

massive, massive positive

Today.

Events

Today’s been a strange one. 

There’ve been highs where I’ve felt really happy, and lows where I’ve cried alone in a quiet corridor. 
I’ve seen  the lovely Debs for lunch, and been taken out by Kev, Sam, Toby, Stu and Sam ( again ), all the most loyal and generous company a man could wish for. 
So I should just pull myself together, right?
I try, then sometimes a little thought, or a memory of ‘before this’  fills my head, and I compare now with then. 
However much I’ve improved, there is no comparison between now and then. I can’t help but look at pictures of the fit, healthy, happy man from 7 months ago and compare him to me. 
Do I have to totally switch off my memory  bank to move on?
In my phone photo library I’m canoeing, surfing, skiing, swimming, in restaurants, in bars, at parties, laughing, smiling, picking up my daughters, sitting on sofas with my wife and friends… do I have to delete these memories to go forward?
Do I want to? They are the things that made me the person I was, that I still want to be, in my head. 
I’m an awful lot luckier than a lot of people, but God, sometimes I don’t feel it. 

Monday and Tuesday.

Events

So many lovely visitors in just 2 days. 

I’ll try to list them:
Cherie, Mary, Ruth, Tim, Noah, Sonal, Prab, Jas, Ina, Catherine , Ali, Mitul, Ed, Claire and Lisa. 
What can I say, other than thank you for caring enough to come. 
I’ve had more to eat these last 2 days than I do in a typical week… 
I tried a Mountain Trike today – google it – cross between a wheelchair and a mountain bike really. Allows me to pretty much go anywhere: beach, mud, grass, rocky terrain… it would mean I could watch the girls play sport on fields, go on ‘walks’ cross country, train on the Thames towpath, you name it. 
Added to my wish list, it would drastically increase my ‘freedom’. 
We’ve sussed that if I wear a mask and snorkel, I can swim for a few minutes. 
As I’m officially ‘negatively bouyant’, I sink like a bloody brick. 
With that in mind I was taken to the Guttman leisure centre today. 
After being hoisted into the pool with mask on, I was told ‘you can’t wear that, it’s against health and safety ‘
I explained that without it I was in danger of simply drowning, and asked the lifeguard to stay close to me. 
‘Cant do that, have to stand the other side of the pool’ was the response. 
Has the world gone mad?
Next week they are going to do a ‘risk assessment ‘ on the mask and snorkel. 
Is it just me….?

Events

I’ve  just read this .

I find occasional emails that were sent to me back when I was still pretty confused….




On 1 Aug 2013, one of my staff wrote:

Welcome back to the UK boss. Hope you feel better for being home-ish. 

Iv been very impatient with waiting for updates on the blog, click on it a million times a day. I know you will love all the superhuman comments, wish u all the strength in the world to make something good of this shit situation, miss you and your humour on a daily basis. If you need anything, let me know. 

xx


Weekend.

Events

Great weekend again, with nothing negative happening. 

Consistent contentment is setting in, it would seem. 
Roy, Caroline, Marta and John came for dinner on Saturday night. I felt like myself, 100%. I can’t believe the change in me. 
My buddy Dickon, there with me on my bike trip, brought me back to Stoke Mandeville tonight. We talked about my crash. He was there with me for 90 minutes til the helicopter came. 
He described how I realised that I couldn’t move my legs as I lay on that sun baked road, and cried as it dawned on me that I’d be disabled for the rest of my life. 
Sorry to have put you through that, my friend. 
I’m glad I can’t remember that, or at least I don’t think I can. When you’re told what happened, it can lead to ‘false memory’. 
I can imagine all too well the cataclysmic dawning that never being able to walk again had on me in those moments, the sense of utter despair. 
Little did I know how my life would in fact start correcting itself 7 months later, thanks to so many people helping. 
My friend Ivan – multiple world marathon kayak champion – came on Saturday to take away my beloved kayak, to sell it for me. 
To see him carry it away was strange. 
I was surprisingly unemotional. 2 months ago I’d have wept uncontrollably; now it seemed, I suppose logical. It’s no good to me now, is it ?

My 3 bikes will be next, my x – country skis, my boots, my roller skis, my ice skates, my bike shoes, my scuba fins etc etc 

I don’t feel so sad about it now, at least I got to do all those things, and do them well. 
If anybody wants stuff before I eBay it all , I’d rather sell it to people I know!